Bär & Karrer Advises Novartis on the Placement of EUR 1,850,000,000 Guaranteed Notes

Novartis Finance S.A. completed the placement of EUR 1,250,000,000 Guaranteed Notes due 2021 and EUR 600,000,000 Guaranteed Notes due 2027. The 2021 Notes were issued at 99.133% of their principal amount with a zero coupon and will mature on 31 March 2021 at their nominal value. The 2027 Notes were issued at 99.874% of their principal amount with an interest of 1.125% and will mature on 30 September 2027 at their nominal value. The Notes are guaranteed by Novartis AG. They have been provisionally admitted to trading at the SIX Swiss Exchange and are expected to be listed there as well.

Barclays Bank PLC, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch acted as Joint Lead Managers and HSBC Bank plc, Société Générale and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (trading as NatWest Markets) as Co-Managers.

Bär & Karrer acted as legal advisor to Novartis as to Swiss law in this transaction. The team included Thomas U. Reutter, Daniel Raun and Matthias Haberstig (all Capital Markets) as well as Daniel Lehmann and Cyrill Diefenbacher (both Tax).